


Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

by ailichi



Category: Jeeves and Wooster
Genre: (modern-ish), Fluff, Long Distance Relationship, Love at First Sight, M/M, MUTUAL PINING YOU GUYS, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, NOT a slowburn, in jesus name amen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-02-11 02:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12925293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailichi/pseuds/ailichi
Summary: Bertie is on a holiday with his mates in Amsterdam - the nature of which is likely obvious. Reginald Jeeves works in a charming pâtisserie-café in the city. Of Course they meet and fall in love and go on continental adventures!! How could it be otherwise!!Leave comments with suggestions for their Escapades, if you like :) xxx





	1. In Which We Meet Our Heroes

Really, it was a frightful piece of luck that they made it through the night unscathed: but then, Bertie Wooster seemed to excel at getting lucky.

His college mates had truly outdone themselves tonight, having somehow managed to convince the doorman of a rather swanky club that they were minor English royals - the ensuing antics and their subsequent consequences mattered little to the boys in pleasant state of genteel drunkeness they were then enjoying. Bertie never seemed to achieve the euphoria that his pals did with alcohol; he just got steadily sleepier. He had dropt his watch a couple of times already that evening, but if he were to trust it, then it was still only on the cusp of midnight. _The night is still young,_ he told himself - _I dashed well wish that I felt the same myself_. He shared these musings with Barmy, but philosophic zeugmas were far from that particular lad’s mind at that moment. Barmy had the emotional resonance of a bedsted at the best of times, and this was not them. At least Gussie Fink-Nottle had been persuaded to give the subject of the Amsterdam canals and their aquatic denizens a rest. _The more some people travel, the more they remain the same,_ thought Bertie, not altogether unfondly. Gus and Bertie had an understanding - they would always be at hand to make good the escape of the other from undesirable situations (much like this one!).

“I say, Gussie! This is our street, is it not?” said Bertie.

“You’re right,” said Augustus in his mellow, subdued way. He addressed himself to the gaggle of his mates: “We’ve got to go, yousee. This is our _street_.”

Vague noises of assent were heard from the other young men. Barmy seemed to have managed to smuggle a bottle of rosé from the club, and was blissfully sharing it around. The quintessential English gentlemen Bertie and Gus were probably not, but they generally drew the line at public intoxication. Besides, warm beds and boxes of continental chocolates awaited in their hotel rooms. With the holiday - embarked upon in the spirit of celebrating their semi-honourable departure from university - drawing to a close, they were both feeling that peculiar liminal sensation of burgeoning adulthood, and its attendant sensibility.

“Vaarwel” called Bertie over his shoulder. No reply came but for Barmy’s: “I’ll see you in the morning, or the afternoon!” The Three Musketeers (Bertie, Gussie, and Barmy) had gotten rooms on the same floor of the Dylan. Among the three young graduates, theories varied as to whether the place was named after Bob, some obscure Celtic god, or the Sidney Michaels play, respectively. The topic had proved fertile conversation for many days, but little thought was given to it that night. After saying goodnight and sweet dreams to each other, Gussie and Bertie parted ways, both glad to have evaded further diaster for another day. Bertie lit a cigarette and smoked it leaning over the balcony. The room looked out over a sedate canal. It was just that time of year when the trees were scattering amber and scarlet leaves everywhere - even the surface of the water was glowing with their dim fire. Funny - he hadn’t noticed how pretty they were til he was on the point of returning home.

Bertie tapped off his half-finished cigarette and went inside. Shrugging off his black jacket, he let himself keel gently onto the double bed and lay there, quite content with life. It was pleasant to have such a interlude between the supposedly halcyon days of his _vie estudiantine_ and the world of enterprise which he was now expected to embark upon. A degree in music theory and education was almost certainly worth the paper it was written on, he reflected - a pity that genuine enthusiasm of his career still evaded him. Of course, teaching was a rewarding vocation, and half the childern in Britain were strapped to a piano and told to start practicing it at some point in their lives - freelance tutorship would certainly help along a teacher’s salary. The concerns that generally are though to occupy the minds of young people as they embark upon their professional lives seemed surmountable to our hero; a lack of ‘industry’ often has its own solution - a lack of ambition.

Bertie remained unconvinced on the home front, however. The fact of the matter was - he was lonely.

***

In the back of a little French pâtisserie-café on Groenburgwal, a tall, smartly-attired young man was carefully and competently layering butter and pastry for the next morning’s croissants. The radio, tuned to NPO Radio 4, was playing the interlude from Mascagni’s Cavellera Rusticana. The shop was quiet by this time of the evening - Reginald Jeeves checked his watch and noted that the evenings were drawing in; it was only half seven, but it was already growing dim. Although he enjoyed his work, Jeeves was starting to feel like he might call it a night pretty soon. The sign in the door had yet to be flipped to “gesloten” but the chances of anyone coming in this time of the evening were slim enough. Jeeves placed the last triangle of pastry on the tray and slid it into the fridge for the morning. Closing the shop every night was a pleasant ritual; strange to think that somewhere open to the public could feel so much like yours alone.

Jeeves had a charming appartment; of a basic, unfurnished old place of austere size (‘bijou’, according to the previous owner), he had really made something cozy. It was always nice to come home; here was an Englishman who was truly European in his habits and tastes. He made a pot of tea and drank it with half a bar of hazelnut Choceur. It was by that time nearing nine o’clock and too late to venture out to meet up with his Dutch acquaintances. A call to his sister was probably in order, however, as it was only eight in Yorkshire. It was the last night she was spending in England for quite a while – the next afternoon she was going on tour with a Moldovian ballet group. He couldn’t be more proud of her.

The familiar dial tone clicked into life, and Amelia Jeeves, in her sweet, low voice, said: “Hi, how’re you doing?”

Reginald knew she never checked the caller ID: “Very well, but not half so well as you, sis! Are you all packed for tomorrow?”

“ _Oh!_ It’s you, Reggie! Good to hear from ya!” her tones shifting subtly to her native Yorkshire. They could talk for hours about nothing much, but it would have to wait until Christmas, as the prices for transnational calls, even within Europe, were capable of crucifying them, skint youths as they were.

“Well, I’m packed, but lost without ya to help. I haven’t my good tulle tutu put in yet. It’s wreaking my head trying ta think what I’m going ta do ta stop it getting at crinkled,”

“I’d roll it up rather than folding it, anyhow. Bring it in your hand luggage.”

“That’s some good thinking, lad, I’ll do that so. By the way ... I’ve just had a very awkward conversation with dearest Mother,” Jeeves heard Amy put down her book.

“Oh? About what?”

“You! She wants to know when you’re thinking of getting a girlfriend and settling down,”

“God _Almighty_. You didn’t break the News, did you?” Jeeves looked steadily at the last of his tea. 

“Gosh, no, no such thing. Just thought you should know. Perhaps if I bring home a girl and you a guy we can swop for the day, and she’ll be none the wiser,”

“I’m glad you’re not as serious about that as you want me to believe you are,” said Jeeves evenly, but with a twinge of a smile.

“Never could catch ya out, bruv”

“No - but tell me, when did you move to London?”

Amelia groaned. “Too clever by half! It’s all that grime I’m listening to in the gym,”

“Blame that then so,” he laughed.

“I think I will!”

“And I’ll blame you if I ever get a scandalised phone call from my mother,” 

“Do! ... alright, I’ll leave you go.”

“I’ll hope to see you when ye come to Germany. You’re doing the am Goetheplatz, correct?”

“Um, yeah. If you make it that’d be unreal. That should be some time in mid-November, I think,” she paused, “I’m trying ta think of the map and put the cities in proportion to the premiere and the final night, if that works in your head,”

“Well, it does, but thank God you can dance - you’d get no job selling tickets!”

After much flurrying about, they managed to say goodnight properly and end the call. Jeeves had a rather good book planned for the rest of the night; not, however, before another cup of hot black tea and some of his own biscuits. He wandered into the bathroom, and performed his ritual ablutions before heading to bed. The novel he had waiting for him was “Brideshead Revisited” and he was almost finished. The temptation to reach the conclusion that night was strong; it was nearing one o’clock in the morning before he was well and truly alseep. He woke up early the next morning with the slim volume still clutched in his hand.


	2. In Which Our Heroes Meet Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just the first half of this chapter at the moment. It shall be extended no later than the 12th of December (and probably before then) xxx enjoy!

“Goedemorgen,” said a distinctly un-Dutch voice at the door of the café-pâttiserie. Jeeves looked up to see a slight, weary-looking young man negotiating the heavy door. He sounded English - home counties perhaps.

“Good afternoon,” said Jeeves. It was, after all, half twelve in the day.

“Oh. Yes,” said Bertie, surprised at both this unexpected compatriot (who was, it had to be said, exceedingly good-looking) and his suggestion that the day was well underway. “What ho, and all that,”

Bertie hadn’t actually drunk _that_ heavily the night before, but his alcohol tolerance had always remained low, despite the training it had gotten in the last decade. He walked up to the counter. Jeeves, putting down his pen next to the labels he was writing, smiled and tried to place Bertie’s accent.

“Would you mind, could I just have, ah, tea, please?”

“Certainly. English breakfast?” he said with a conspiratorial smile.

Bertie nodded, “Please”

“I’ll bring it down to the table,”

“That’s very kind,” said Bertie. Gosh, he would _really_ love to have that man’s number. He was an instant hangover cure all by himself. He could feel himself getting fond in his direction already. Oh, to be a young person of sensuous nature in a libertine city such as this one! 

“Now Romeo is beloved and loves again, / Alike betwitched by the charm of looks,” he murmured to himself.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

Bertie looked up from his reverie – gosh, the man was tall: one would have to stand up very properly indeed in order to receive a kiss – “Oh, sorry, nothing. Thank you so much. For the tea. Would you like to join me?” Bertie had noticed that they always serve large pots of tea on the continent, a fact for which he was now thankful.

Jeeves glanced around before delicately taking a seat. “Just for a moment, I’m afraid,”

“Are you a fellow expatriot?” asked Jeeves

“Just over on holidays, unfortunately. Recently scraped through university, so we’re over here having a bit of a lark and a fragment of the traditional Grand Tour,”

“Oh, lovely. You’ve been to the Van Gogh Museum, I trust?”

“Yes, magnificent place it was too,” Bertie wondered whether it was an appropriate context to tell the story of how Vincent had had a passionate affair with Paul Gaugain, but decided against it. “I only wish I’d gotten to attend something at the Concertgebouw,”

“To be so close and yet so far!” commiserated Jeeves

“Precisely! You play yourself?”

“Violin! And you?”

“Piano! We should play something together sometime!”

“That would be most enjoyable –” Jeeves rose as another customer came in the door.

“Oh, it’s only Gussie,” said Bertie, who had seen him through the broad, sparklingly clean window. “Strict vegan, you know; he won’t have anything. Only hear to drag me out by my ear,”

“Ah, a friend of yours! Well, he need not go without in this pâtisserie,” said Jeeves, returning to the counter with a smile. “I’ll bring down something sweet for all of us,”

Fink-Nottle sat down with a clunk. “Hello,”

“You look as good as I was feeling half an hour ago, old chap,”

“Thanks,” he replied sardonically. “What happened since?”

Jeeves was cheerfully assembling a plate of sweet cakes at the counter. Bertie leaned into the table and showed Augustus where to direct his gaze. “Oh. Good luck,”

“Do you not think he’s unreasonably handsome?”

“Bertie, I’m straight”

“Damnit, Gussie, I _know_ that, and I accept your identity, but like. Objectively speaking. Is the man not akin to a dashing hero of those splendid paperback romances you find in European railway stations? In as many words, an Adonis? A boy to charm the birds from their trees and the butterflies from the meadows?”

“He’s coming back,” said Augustus, pre-emptively.

“I’m right though!”


	3. Amsterdam by Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First Dates Holland! Bertie and Reggie walk around (respectable parts of!) Amsterdam, buy great food and fall in love a little bit more, guaranteed coziness :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of ye are going to the Netherlands ever, hmu, I’ve done a horrifying amount of research into cute things to do there lmaooo. Also, if you look up the Albert Cuyp Market, Amsterdam on Google Earth, there’s a pride flag flying! :)
> 
> Apologies that this didn’t happen when it was supposed to, I kinda forget about it, the poor thing. Thank you to everyone who left kudos, and especially those who commented, because I got a little email with a link to this work and it reminded me that I promised to write a thing. This chapter exists because of ye tbh! Hope ye like.

Bertie was overdressed, and he knew it. His was wearing his favourite jacket, a black military blazer with gold embroidery, and was seriously considering popping the collar on the white shirt underneath. He was meeting Reggie this evening at the Bloemenmarkt, and he was a wonderful mixture of giddy and blissed out. The lads were heading home tomorrow, and his hotel room was miraculously tidy. Laid out on the bed were his Turkish enamel cigarette case, his wallet and his phone. He felt he was missing something without the clutter that was attendant on his daily life. Where the assorted scruffy backpacks? Where his terrible French noir paperbacks? Where (this was the worst moment) his damn keys?

Checking his watch, Bertie realised he had half an hour to spare. He’d never been ready for anything early before in his life. When Reggie had given him his number - _smiling so softly!!_ his mind interjects - he hadn’t known what to do with himself. He texted Reggie that evening, and, through little virtue of his own, they had managed to arrange a little date. The flower market had been Reginald’s idea; Bertie smiled even thinking about it - usually he was the hopeless romantic in his relationships. The immaculately written note of Reggie’s was on the back of the café’s card - the words “ _personal contact info_ “ prefacing his number - was safely tucked into Bertie’s phone case. He took it out again now, and looked at the carefully inscribed ‘x’ at the end of the note. There was a tiny, delicate thought forming in the back of his mind. He had bought a bit of makeup yesterday. He’d have been too shy to do any such thing in England, but the Continent had a proud tradition of giving young men a much-sought after splash of courage. Shouldn’t he wear a little? Nothing that anyone would notice.

“I could do with some _Dutch_ courage right now,” thought Bertie. Rifling through his luggage, he set his hands on a small paper bag. “Right-oh,”

He’d been very happy that he had resisted making a joke about a fictitious girlfriend’s birthday at the shopcounter. In theory, putting the stuff on should be less stressful than buying it, right?

After a bit of fumbling, he got the plastic off the lipstick. Opened it. It was scarcely darker than his natural colour. He dabbed the tiniest bit on, inexpertly. He watched the jaw of his reflection tighten as though it belonged to someone else. The words his mind were suggesting were highly unpleasant. He scraped a nail across his lips to get rid of the damn stuff. He was fine without it, surely to God? 

Turning away from the mirror, he sighed distantly. _Fuck this_. No sense of moderation. He caugh up his stuff and went downstairs.

.

“Hey darlin’! You look great!” Reginald was beaming with pleasure at seeing Bertie.

“You too!” said Bertie, drawing up at the café and mooring himself at Reggie’s side. The light was dimming, but the redbrick streets were still pleasantly abuzz with people. And, “darlin’” — he rather liked that.

“Where are we headed?” asked Bertie, “you’ve been most awfully secretive,”

“I thought,” said Reginald, “that we might stroll along to the midnight market, and have a look around, then, if you’d like, we can go for something to eat,”

“Sounds fantastic,” said Bertie, and, as they began to walk along the canal, not-quite hand-in-hand, he smiled to himself about what a perfect gentleman this Reggie fellow was.

.

Fairy lights, strung liberally across the narrow street, lit up the market street, which was filled with stalls of all kinds, selling everything from, stroopwafels, woodcraft, kibbeling, gingerbread, Orthodox iconography, chocolate, as well as the mainstays of European commerce, cheap clothes and plasticky jewellery, and, of course, flowers of all sorts. Being both equally suggestible to the romantic atmosphere, they found themselves holding hands almost without thinking.

They slowed to a stop in front of a particularly beautiful bakery stall. Bertie, after the required appreciative glance, watched Reggie cast an expert and generous eye over the appeltaarts, cute little doughnuts, and viennoiserie. He felt already so fond of the person he had at his side - he seemed kind, and cheerful, and tuned-in to the generousity of his own life. Reginald leaned over to murmur in Bertie’s ear. “What would you like?”

There were charming little gingerbread decorations hanging from the roof of the stall. Very precisely-made children and stars and hearts, decorated with piped icing in red, white, yellow, and blue. Reggie followed Bertie’s gaze in an instant, and, just as he was suggesting that they might buy one of them each, Reggie had asked for two of the pretty hearts in impeccable Dutch, and given one of them to Bertie with his free hand.

“Reggie, I can’t allow you to do that,” protested Bertie, “there’s no need, you’re awful, li-” ... he stumbled to a halt at the unrepentant look on Reggie’s face ... “I mean to say, thank you,”

“You’re more than welcome,” said Reggie, smiling indulgently.

As they walked on, eating the gingerbread, Bertie swore a solemn vow to stand Reggie the next thing he admired. Quite naturally, as with English people in all places and times, the conversation drifted to tea. They compared methods and habits and sentiments; both were reassured to confirm that the other was a tea-first milk-second chap, that the water had to be properly hot but not boiling, and that sugar was _verboden_ but chocolate was most certainly not. Bertie insisted, upon the last point, on purchasing a slab of hazelnut milk chocolate, and went so far as to tell Reggie that they would save it until they had chai masala together. Reginald agreed, passing to bring up the issue of Bertie’s return to London.

Reggie suggested they have dinner in a nearby restaurant he knew well. The owner, a petite Tuscan matriarch with an easy laugh and a formidable politesse, knew Reggie by name, and was apparently over the moon to see him with a date. In a conspiratorial tone - intended to carry - she told Bertie that he had better hold on to his boy. “All my nieces came to visit me last year, and they’ll agree with you that he’s a catch!”

Bertie was didn’t know what to say to that, but he was enjoying the experience. They escaped to a table, bringing their menus. After enduring merciless teasing on Bertie’s part about how he should order for him, Reggie translated the mongrel Italo-Dutch names of the various dishes. The apéritif arrived, and Reggie poured with practiced ease.

“How did you get into the café-pâttisserie line, then?”

“Oh,” said Reggie, “I always loved cooking. Third act of love, you know, cooking for someone else - or with someone else”

“I’m sure I can’t guess what the others are,”

“Sharing a bed, a wardrobe, and a kitchen,” listed Reggie. “Not as scandalous as you’d hoped, perhaps?”

“Plenty, thanks,” said Bertie, laughing.

“Cooking very sweet though, really. Unites everyone - the names of recipes are different from each other, but the ingredients and methods and histories are hopelessly entangled. Every country is broadly similar when it comes to food,”

“It’s like music!” said Bertie, understanding exactly. “Variations of instruments, of scales, and of pieces:- but everyone loves music,”

“Exactly! It’s like music!”

They were almost (almost) too busy talking to eat their suppers, but, then, that’s how good food is meant to be eaten; the evening ended too early, and they decided, amid terrible, obvious, jokes, to go Dutch on the bill.


	4. The Island at the End of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half in a daze, Bertie returns to London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The city defeated him. It refused to be bent into shape; it stayed a willful, sprawling, sinful place. It even told him as much. When he walked through the gutted wreck of old Saint Paul's, he tripped and fell over a piece of rubble -- a tombstone. When he got to his feet and dusted himself down he saw that it read, in Latin, 'Resurgam' -- 'I Will Rise Again.”  
> ― Jonathan Barnes, on London (in “The Somnambulist”)
> 
> “This city is like no other city in the world. It is brilliant but it is bloated, and I've never called it home”  
> ― Jessie Burton, on Amsterdam (in “The Miniaturist”)

Morning - far too early. If the world was just, seven o’clock in the morning would be regarded as nighttime, but as things are. industrious people are abroad and working; therefore others must act as though getting up and preparing for the day is something which civilised folk can do in the dark.

Bertie hardly knows what to do. Reggie called last night and they talked for hours. Bertie will return home, he will find work, and they will visit each other every couple of weeks. It’s all been very sensible, and grown-up and studiously dispassionate. 

He’s murderously upset about it.

The aeroplane to Heathrow feels like Charon’s boat across the Styx, except without the alleviating factor of a crisp breeze. Bertie’s meant to be reading Jane Eyre, for about the sixth time, but he can’t do it to himself right now; he’s close enough to crying as it is. He thinks about how, in the Middle Ages, Britain and Ireland were so often described as ‘the islands at the end of the world’ by continental scholars. It seems unbearably true just now.

Augustus says goodbye to him at Heathrow, and gods, he really _must_ look miserable, because straight-laced, reserved Gussie gives him a brief, uncomfortable hug before they part ways.

Bertie hasn’t said a word of his own volition in over twenty-four hours. When he gets back to his apartment in Serle Street, he packs away everything very carefully, and pours himself a neat whiskey. He looks up Reggie’s address and copies it diligently into his notebook. He’ll write to Reggie tomorrow.

It’s already a quarter to nine, and the day has passed him by. At a loss as to what else to do, he throws on a jacket and goes for a walk around Lincoln’s Inn Field. The tops of the trees catch the last of the sunlight crawling weakly over the buildings, but the pavement is shrouded in darkness and quiteness. Nobody much is around this time of the evening. Students are in the City proper, clubbing, or studying away for the last exams at King’s College. Theatre-goers are safely tucked away in their seats, with their family or friends around them, already engrossed in this evening’s story. The streets will start getting busy again in two hours time, when people start going home, but for know, he’s got blessedly little company. It’s cozy here - there’s something charming about the very idea of a city, with humans all trying to get closer to one another. He had been half-determined to dislike London on his way back, but it was impossible. He could arrive at giving up on himself before he could ever give up on London.

He finds himself walking past the Seven Stars - it’s a pub about as London as they get, with sensible Anglo-Saxon drinks, plenty of Hollywood film-posters, and a complete dearth of proper light. Inside, lawyers are celebrating well-argued cases, young adults are talking politics, and couples in their thirties are beginning to consider returning home to take over the watch from the babysitter. He’s tempted to ooze in and have a drink, but he can see the whole night stretch out in front of him, little snapshots of him drinking alone, him growing tipsily, goodnaturedly, clumsy, him properly hammered, looking for his keys - worse than all this, him tomorrow morning, hungover and depressed on top of it.

No. He’s going to have to deal with this crisis of missed-opportunity sooner or later, and damn it if he’s not going to try to pull himself half-way together now. That’s the Code of the Woosters, or at least a degenerated remnant of one: relative sobriety in the face of distress. He’ll go home and put on a jazz record.

.

Reggie is sitting cross-legged on his bed; a few minutes ago he was meditating, but now he’s just miserably vapid. His brain sometimes gets stuck on autopilot, and refuses to cooperate - this is such a time. There’s a G. K. Chesterson quote humming around his mind, but he can’t understand why it should be significant: “London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.” He needs to do something small and humble and practical, but he has already made more than enough pastries for the café, and writing bores him today.

Taking out a tiny wooden briefcase, and filling a plain glass jar with water, Reginald sits down at the window and begins to paint - not Amsterdam, exactly, but a city somewhere between itself and London, and a street filled with finely-detailing, with trivial little things and with history and with tiny, medieval, people. He uses a sort of pale yellow, the creamy colour of sandstone, for the buildings, like all his favourite European towns; the sky, only visible in a small corner, is the hazy blue you get after weeks of oppressive heat, with dust and water vapour and half the world hanging in the air. He stops half way through for no real reason except a slight tiredness in his right hand.

He will send the delicate, trivial painting to Bertie in the post tomorrow. To acknowledge their togetherness; maybe even as a love-token.

He washes his teeth and takes off his painting shirt. Collapsing into bed, he is mercifully alseep straight away - almost before his head touches the pillow.


End file.
